Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

In this article, the introduction, dissemination, and proliferation of the gunpowder units in the Ottoman military structure in the fifteenth century are discussed. It aims to bring an alternative approach to the effects of gunpowder technology on the relationship between the frontier lords and the Ottoman center in the Balkans. In this aspect, the performance of the Ottoman military organization in two different military encounters, the Battle of Varna and the Battle of Kosovo, is stressed. Then, the Ottoman acquisition of the advanced firearm units such as the war wagons is evaluated through the military interactions between the Hungarians and the Ottomans. Lastly, the effects of the transformation of the Ottoman military organization on the intra-domestic power structure in the Ottoman Balkans are discussed through the literature on the issue. In parallel with it, it is questioned whether it is possible to see the execution of a prominent frontier lord of the Evrenos family, Ali Bey in 1451 by Mehmed II as the sign of the shift of the power balance in the Ottoman Balkans

La presente investigación tuvo varios objetivos: 1) aproximarse al significado que jóvenes venezolanos que habitan en zonas marginales les otorgan a ciertas lexías simples, concretas y abstractas; 2) conocer el rasgo en el que prefieren apoyarse para tal operación y 3) saber si a estas las consideran positivas o negativas. Aunque alude a Vygotski (1934) y en Piaget (1969), la pesquisa se fundamenta en la clasificación que ofrecen Clarck y Clarck (1977). La muestra la constituyen 78 informantes, todos estudiaban el último año de bachillerato y residentes de sectores populares (Petare y Mariche), localizados en el estado Miranda. Sus edades oscilan entre los 15 y 18 años. Se ejecutó un trabajo de campo a nivel descriptivo. El instrumento aplicado se trató de una encuesta que ofrecía la oportunidad de otorgarle el significado a diez unidades léxicas. Posteriormente, se analizaron los datos obtenidos y se tabularon. Los resultados indican que los jóvenes asignan significados, en primer lugar, a través de la función que cumple lo denotado y, en segundo lugar, mediante la ejemplificación. La mayoría de las respuestas fueron positivas.                               

Se plantea que, desde el proceso económico, las sociedades organizan su desarrollo alrededor de la producción, la distribución, el intercambio y el consumo alrededor de los diferentes agentes económicos que conforman a la comunidad. En los espacios virtuales de comunicación, podemos observar este proceso, que es el más relevante para nuestro análisis, y que consideramos, en este caso, como un consumo cultural. Nos centramos en las categorías de consumo de Omar Calabrese (1989), sobre el consumo consolatorio y productivo en relación con las imágenes compartidas en y sobre Facebook.

El objetivo de esta investigación es revisar el concepto de literatura con el fin de elaborar una definición operativa para los curricula de enseñanza del inglés (EI) lo suficientemente amplia como para que incluya tanto los textos canónicos como las obras contemporáneas, disidentes y/o de vanguardia que probablemente serían excluidas por los círculos literario-educativos más conservadores. Dada la naturaleza teórica de este trabajo, hemos seguido un enfoque documental con la intención de destacar los elementos más importantes a considerar en la conformación de nuestra propuesta de re-conceptualización. Adicionalmente, sugerimos probables vías de investigación en esta área que podrían ser seguidas en otras investigaciones.

This article aims to show an extended analysis of the previous study carried out by [5], where the performance of TCP on an OBS network model was addressed based on regenerative processes and Markov renewal theory (proposed in the literature) , and its evaluation by means of simulation using the network simulator program ns-2; However, in this new study, an expanded version of TCP throughput over OBS networks is provided for generic speed sources, taking into account an assembly time window of + -10%, in reference to the optimal assembly time for the particular case of Wx = Wmax, which in the previous study was left open for future work. As in [5], this new analysis is performed using the most common versions of the loss-based TCP protocol, such as Reno, New Reno and SACK, whose results are contrasted by means of computer simulation, in terms of the performance of TCP and its corresponding theoretical and experimental errors, bearing in mind the analytical expressions obtained both in the aforementioned previous article, as well as the original analysis carried out by [3], given the differences found in terms of its mathematical development; also maintaining the analysis for the scenarios with and without the delayed ACK option, for a comparative study between versions.

Today's mobile devices have a wide variety of components and sensors that can be used for application development. Specifically, the possibility of geolocating the device user, generates a great variety of applications, for example routing on maps according to traffic, the possibility of meeting nearby people, requests for opinions on places that the user has visited, among many others. Another application that stands out is being able to detect when the user enters or leaves a certain area, what is known as geofencing. Geofences are virtual fences or boundaries determined by geographical coordinates. Although this technique has a wide variety of applications, this work emphasizes its use for the active monitoring of people, whether they are adults with a health problem or children. Two applications that are currently being developed by the research and development team are presented, explaining their characteristics and possible uses  

As web application programming interfaces (APIs) evolve, previously established contracts change, and thus can affect the behavior, operation and / or execution of consumer applications such as Mashup. In these cases, these applications need to be repaired to continue working, which is a process called co-evolution. Identifying and locating the operations that are affected by the evolution of web APIs and estimating the impact they generate are necessary tasks that help the developer update the code. This work presents a proposal to assist the coevolution of Mashup. Specifically from a mashup operations graph, we identify and locate the operations affected by some changes in the web APIs. We also propose a set of simple metrics that allow estimating the impact of these changes on the mashup. The mashup operations graph and metrics assist web developers in co-evolution tasks. The proposal was applied to two mashups that are currently available on the web. The preliminary results show that the proposal is applicable.

Imaging technology has long played a principal role in the medical domain, and as such, its use is widespread in the diagnosis and treatment of numerous health conditions. Concurrently, new developments in imaging techniques and sensor technology make possible the acquisition of increasingly detailed images of several organs of the human body. This improvement is indeed advantageous for medical practitioners. However, it comes to a cost in the form of storage and telecommunication infrastructures needed to handle high-resolution images reliably. Ordinarily, digital compression is a mainstay in the efficient management of digital media, including still images and video. From a technical point of view, medical imaging could take full advantage of digital compression technology. However, nuances unique to medical data impose constraints to the application of digital compression in medical images. This paper presents an overview of digital compression in the context of still medical images, along with a brief discussion on related regulatory and legal implications.

In this article I argue that any naturalistic aesthetic implicitly assume two fundamental premises as a methodological principle: that (i.) human nature is conditioned, limited and made possible by the natural biological structure of the human organism, and that (ii.) human culture — in this case specifically artistic creation and aesthetic experience — is constituted within the limits posed and made possible by the human organism. I will point out some of the implications that this understanding of human nature and this cultural ontology have for aesthetics as a philosophical discipline in the non-dualistic conceptual framework of philosophical naturalism.

The understanding of algorithms is one of the difficulties for students in university-level introductory programming courses. Although there are already strategies to stimulate the understanding of algorithms, a strategy that meets the needs of the subject “Programming 1” at the University of Los Andes was not found. Therefore, a serious game oriented towards this subject is proposed in this study for the understanding of algorithms, applying the ADDIE (Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation) methodology. The Analysis, Design, and Development phases focused on the construction of JUSECA (Serious Game for the Comprehension of Algorithms); in the Implementation phase, the game was distributed to a group of students; and in the Evaluation phase, an ad hoc test was administered to evaluate the understanding of algorithms, and MEEGA+ (Model for the Evaluation of Educational Games) was applied to evaluate the students’ experiences and the usability of the game. On the one hand, the results of the ad hoc test showed that the game prompted students to correctly solve the easiest algorithm. On the other hand, the results of MEEGA+ indicated that the game moderately meets the requirements of an educational game